Centre for Spatial Reasoning

"In short, the relation between spatial thinking and STEM is a robust one, emerging for ordinary students and for gifted students, for men and for women, and for people who grew up during different historical periods."

 - Nora Newcombe in Picture This: Increasing Math and Science Learning by Improving Spatial Thinking (2010) 

The STEM SPACE Project is seeking to enhance the spatial reasoning skills of primary school pupils across Scotland using maths lesson plans which incorporate deliberate spatial reasoning activities.

In collaboration with MathsBURST, a set of lesson plans and activities developed in Australia, the Centre for Spatial Reasoning is leading on deploying spatialised maths learning across Scotland. This is achieved by connecting with local authorities to appoint Champions, who can recruit schools and teachers to participate in the roll-out of the project.

We currently have lesson plans and resources available to teachers teaching in any levels of P4 to P7 and composite classes, which have been used in nearly 300 schools by over 800 teachers in Scotland to date.

Results from the past two years of the programme, which involved P4 and P5 pupils, have been very promising. Compared with business as usual control classes, pupils taking part in the programme have improved substantially more in spatial reasoning, maths and computational thinking assessments. Teachers have also praised the programme for its ease of use and adaptability, indicating that the pupils they see getting the most out of the programme are those who typically do not engage well with maths.